Lesson 27

Text of conversation

Nora: Robert, I’d like you to do something for me.

Robert: (Irritably) Oh, what is it, Mum?

Nora: I want you to make up the stove for my bath.

Robert: But I’m busy – I’m doing my homework.

Nora: Do you think I haven’t got any work to do? Look all these clothes I’ve got to iron.

Robert: Yes, but do you expect me to stop in the middle of what I’m writing?

Nora: I can’t make you help me if you don’t want to; but I’ve seldom known you take so much interest in your homework.

Robert: I’ve got ever so much to do tonight.

Nora: I only asked you to help me for a minute. I don’t like my boys to he disagreeable.

Harry: Robert, do I understand you to say you refuse to help your Mother? You oughtn’t even to wait for her to ask you. I’ve been watching you’ do your work’ as you call it. Looking out of the window half the time! Let me tell you, young man, you need some real work to do. Never mind, Nora, lot me help you.

Nora: Thank you, Harry. I’d just like the stove to be made up for me to have a bath. I haven’t got used to this kind of stove yet – you understand it better.

Harry: Oh yes; I’ll soon get the water to boil! Where’s the coal? /He shovels some cola into the stove/ … There, my boy, that didn’t take me long do, did it?

Robert: No, Dad; but I advise you to have another look inside the stove before you sit down again, I think the fire was out.

Harry: (Opening front of stove) Good heavens, so it was. Well, you’re jolly well going to re-light it, Robert, I refuse to.

Lesson 28

Text of conversation

Mrs. Wood: Oh, Mrs. Parker, the police-sergeant here has come about the theft of my spoons. Would you be so kind as to tell him what you heard this afternoon?

Nora: Yes, of course. Good afternoon, sergeant.

Sergeant: Good afternoon, Mrs. Parker.

Nora: Well, first I heard somebody moving about in Mrs. Wood’s house. And then I heard the back door bang. I thought it was Mrs. Wood. But it can’t have been her, because I met her coming down the street only a few minutes later.

Sergeant: Yes. About what time was this?

Nora: I heard the radio announcer say it was half past three, just before I went out.

Sergeant: So if you heard a stranger come out of Mrs. Wood’s back door, it must have been before three-thirty?

Nora: Yes, a few moments before.

Sergeant: Yes. Did you see nay one as your want out?

Nora: Yes, I saw the roadman sweeping the pavement, and – oh yes, I saw the insurance man knock at the for door of number ten.

Sergeant: Thanks very much. That’s very helpful. I shall have to ask them if they noticed anyone they didn’t know come into the road. You didn’t see anyone else, Mrs. Parker. No tradesmen, for example?

Nora: Nobody at all.

Mrs. Wood: Isn’t it awful, Mrs. Parker? Just think – you may have actually heard the thief stealing my spoons!

Sergeant: Well, we won’t say ‘stealing’ for the moment, Mrs. Wood. You never know with these cases. We’ll just say the spoons are missing. I daresay you haven’t seen the last of them yet.